A Tale, Refracted
by Cooper Troxell
Anna Pidgorna’s The Child, Bringer of Light is a fascinating study in the translation of visual to aural experience. The work was performed last Spring at New Works for Solo Strings, a Carnegie Hall workshop with the renowned Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. Structurally, it’s constructed around seven short sections, each a hint of a plotline. What is interesting is that these notes seem integral to developing an enriched understanding of the piece. It’s a common dig to say that narrative programs in music are so much window-dressing, but Pidgorna’s artistic work spans composition and multi-media work, and a piece that creates and draws strength from visual imagery is only natural.
For one thing, such a strongly visual piece creates no small chance for the listener to imagine new relationships between materials each time. The box notation in the first measure, for instance, indicates that the cellist is to play the first line in an uneven rhythm while in the following measures it becomes a backdrop to the introductory pizzicato passage. To these fragile ears it suggests the emergence and placement of two primary gestural forces of the piece — the shimmering amorphous quality best described as light, and the tip-toe steps of the child working in concert, yet temporally and conceptually separate. Of course it does not stay this way for long, and the material is reimagined through a whirling cycle of ornate timbral combinations and a close attention to velocity, all of which develops these images in a deliberate scheme that is open to spirited interpretation. And when referring back to these aural images, which develop and intersect in complex ways, you’ll find a special magic in the impermanence of an image constructed only through an association that you the listener have formed.
A common motion in the work (only one of many) is like a heavy swinging pendulum. We can feel its pull because we have learned from the world what momentum feels like. Within the first few moments, we have encountered a small menagerie of simple gestures that are later constructed into more complex and fully lived experiences as the narrative progresses. We can recognize these forms of motion from our own lives as well as the basic contours of the story. It’s fascinating to consider the many possible paths of their abstraction from those initial gestures.
In such a temporally free-form environment, it’s most interesting to consider each phrase an independent act relative to all others. Tempo is traditionally used as an absolute plane on which to organize the dramatic speed at which moments occur. What replaces that lost structure in a setting such as this is an internal narrative that provides the impetus to create the moment in the first place. This enables the instrumentalist to approach the score with the same freedom of delivery an actor might have in approaching a script without sacrificing its relative impact. Pidgorna is maintaining the perspective of both composer and instrumentalist in performance by providing a hybrid of notational-textual instructions. Like any good myth, meant to be retold and recast, the performer finds control over the individual moment, and resources to fill their interpretation with complex motivations born from the world around them.
